Housing

The growth of the petroleum industry created an immediate and urgent need for housing in the Turner Valley area. Given the lack of urban development in the region, there were virtually no existing options available at the outset of the boom in the early 1920s. The range of housing that emerged— from basic bunkhouses in work camps to spacious homes for community elites— clearly illustrates how the oil and gas industry shaped community development in Turner Valley.

Oil companies often provided the simplest form of housing, consisting of temporary lodging for single men. For example, Royalite built a number of bunkhouses near the plant that came to be known as “the Batch,” while other companies established camps for workers as petroleum exploration spread throughout the valley by the late 1920s. These facilities offered the bare minimum necessary for housing— single rooms with sparse furnishings, communal showers and a cookhouse serving meals around the clock. These extremely

practical accommodations met the basic needs for housing in the oil fields.

The high demand for housing also presented economic opportunities for entrepreneurs in the growing communities of Turner Valley and Black Diamond, who opened boarding houses and multi-purpose buildings that offered accommodation to workers. The most notable of these was a two-storey structure built around 1926 and known locally as the Log Cabin. In addition to housing workers, it became one of the social hubs at the Turner Valley townsite. Boarding houses were often quite rudimentary, offering workers little comfort or privacy, and reflected the hurried effort to adapt to the demands of a rapidly-growing industry. Oral histories and other evidence confirm that many of these boarding houses were operated by women (often widows), illustrating how some women were able to capitalize on the economic opportunities generated by the region’s petroleum boom.

Another option for those seeking temporary housing was to rent space from a local farmer or rancher. One married couple who arrived in the region in 1937 struck an agreement with a bachelor farmer whereby the wife would cook, clean and work around the homestead in return for the couple's accommodation. The couple stayed with the farmer for two years, providing them with an important form of transitional living space that gave them a foothold in Turner Valley until they could afford to purchase their own house. The arrangement also illustrates the important and often hidden ways that women’s work was crucial to the family economy. In this case, the wife’s domestic labour was traded for accommodation, allowing the husband to seek work in the oil patch.

While these options were suitable for temporary accommodation, many workers and their families wanted more substantial housing that also took into account the boom and bust nature of the petroleum industry. Mobility was essential for workers who might have to move on to new job opportunities at very short notice. This gave rise to one of the most characteristic forms of housing in the Turner Valley area— small shacks, typically twelve by twenty-four feet, consisting of two rooms and resting on skids to allow them to be moved to a new location. “There was no use having anything very permanent,” recalled one worker in a later interview; “It was better to have something on skids and have it where you can move it.” These modest dwellings could be found alongside more permanent houses in the communities of Turner Valley and Black Diamond, as

well as in the small, temporary settlements that emerged in the late 1920s. Though somewhat cramped, these shacks provided affordable family housing that was well suited to the needs of workers in an often volatile industry.

A much more stable and comfortable form of housing took root among the managers, scientists and other professionals who worked in Turner Valley. A planned neighbourhood was established in 1921 by Royalite, and the unofficial name given to the subdivision— Snob Hill— hints at the class divisions present in Turner Valley. In addition to having more spacious houses and beautiful landscaping, residents of Snob Hill enjoyed access to greater amenities, most notably indoor plumbing, than the majority of the region’s population. As historian David Finch notes, the permanence and relative luxury of housing in Snob Hill was a direct reflection of the job stability of the managerial and professional classes who were more likely than plant or rig workers to survive economic downturns with their jobs intact. In short, the stability of housing in Snob Hill was a direct reflection of the privileged position its residents enjoyed in the oil and gas industry.

These different forms of housing illustrate the different types of communities that emerged in the Turner Valley area in the 1920s and beyond. The region was home to work camps and short-term settlements, as well as to larger, more stable communities such as Black Diamond, Turner Valley and Longview.